Author Website Links

Monday, September 15, 2008

Typo Amusement

First, let there be business.

Just a quick note to let you know that The Wonder That Is My Blog will be largely automated this week, due to parental visitage. My mother will be here. I've still got posts coming up on a daily basis, but I may not be so quick to visit and comment on your blogs. I'm sorry. Please don't hate me. My fragile psyche can't take it.

You didn't quite realize how important you are, did you?

And that, my friends, concludes the business of the morning/day/evening/whenever you're reading this. On to the amusement.

For some reason, typos crack me up. Spelling mistakes may make me want to flagellate people with noodles, but typos amuse me to no end. I proofread menus and make snarky comments about people who don't know how to spell "quesadilla." I have this strange idea that maybe the people who put letters on signs ought to have the basics of spelling and grammar down pat. But give me a good typo and I'll giggle for hours.

I remember two typos with particular fondness. The first was from a romancey-type thing in which a whole lot of stroking was going on. No, not THAT kind of stroking. More like the hero stroking her hair and stroking her arms while she cried, and that sort of thing. Only he kept typing it storking. So he was storking her hair and storking her arms. And the mental picture there STILL makes me laugh. I picture some guy beating on a poor woman with a big white bird.

And every time I read something about gentle stroking, I laugh.

The other typo that made me snarf was from an old boss of mine, who is quite honestly certifiably insane. We wrote a lot of reports together back in ye olde days, you know, before electricity when all managerial reports were etched in stone. And she had this problem with the word "assess." She kept leaving an S off the end. And really, you can only read about how someone needs to asses the situation so many times before it becomes snarfalicious.

Well, aside from the ubiquitous it's for its and your for you're, it's when people use the word dialogue as a verb: "Well, yes, we need to get together and dialogue." I also cant stand when people pronounce integral as intregal. These aren't written typos but speech typos.

Marcia: Enjoy the child visitage. Hope it doesn't send you to a hermitage. That would suckitage. ;)

Jamie: Oh yes. I proof everything that I type at least two or three times because my brain gets ahead of my fingers. Hubby told me yesterday about a colleague who was trying to type "leukopenia" in a patient note but replaced the A with an S. HAH.

Aaron: I'm trying to come up with a message you could spell with fifteen Xs and 3 Ss. I am coming up blank, darn it.

Balthazar: Oh, don't get me started. Nuclear versus nucular. AUGH!

PJ: That's in the same category as stork versus stroke. TOO funny!

Cate: Maybe, but you are funny, so it's okay. I say so, and I am important. Not impotant, as I mistakenly typed. Sad but absolutely true.

I have some weird Freudian thing that makes me constantly replace organism with orgasm...I remember doing it the first time in fifth grade and getting in a lot of trouble (she thought I did it on purpose), and have caught myself at least two or three times since, a couple of times in professional correspondence right before clicking "send" (although I can't remember exactly the significance of the word "organism" in my day job as a banker...?).

Psychological help indeed for skipping sleep :) Typos make me laugh as well, and you'd think I'd be able to come up with some that I've done or have seen lately, but alas I fail. I couldn't help but join your blogging adventures after this past weekend ;)

My current favorite type occured in our local small town birdcage liner (which is chop full of them incidentally) It was an article on the anniversary of the death of a lovely, lovely elderly woman who died after much suffering. "...she went to heave a year ago and we still miss her."SNARF

About Me

I like writing books, playing games, fighting evil, and cooking (everyone's got to have hobbies). My YA zombie comedy, BAD TASTE IN BOYS, is available from Delacorte Press right now! The next Kate Grable adventure, BAD HAIR DAY, will be available November 2012. Which is la awesome.